One Hot Cowboy Wedding (3 page)

“Now you know how the real Cuddy on that television show feels.” Ace laughed. But an instant picture of her in a black lace teddy on a big bed with gold satin OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 15

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sheets started an arousal and he had to think about something else in a hurry or be in misery all the way to the hotel.

Jasmine shot him a look that said funny was over.

“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do it. And I’ll protect the door of our honeymoon suite like a dragon protectin’ a princess. One thing for sure, darlin’— there ain’t no way that smart- ass lawyer can take my ranch away from me now. We’ve got pictures and I’ll buy whatever newspaper the article is in tomorrow morning about us winning the prize. Who would’ve thought we’d fall into a deal like this? Right now I’m telling the limo driver our first stop is our hotel to get all our things. We’ve got luxury waiting at the Bellagio.

Champagne first?”

He removed a bottle from the ice and held it up.

She nodded. She damn sure needed something to calm her nerves.

He poured two flutes and handed her one. “To a happy marriage, Jazzy.”

She touched her glass to his. “And to a happier divorce.” OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 16

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The suite was stunning. The king- sized bed faced a wall of glass windows with a view of Las Vegas night lights. The seating area included big- screen plasma television, a fully stocked mini- bar, comfortable furniture, and thick, plush carpet.

Jasmine tossed her hat on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and sunk her feet into the carpet. “Thank God that’s over.”

“You didn’t even look at the fancy digs. You’ve been here before.” Ace removed his jacket and hung it in the mirror- fronted closet.

“Your jaw didn’t drop either, so you’ve been here too. Right?” she asked.

“I’ve been in Vegas for the Professional Rodeo several times, and yes, I’ve been here,” he said.

“But you didn’t book a room here for your wedding, which tells me that you didn’t book the room the time you were here,” she said.

“I’m not talking about past women on my wedding night, if that’s what you are angling for.” He sat down on the sofa and picked up a menu from the glass-topped coffee table. “What would my new bride and best friend like for supper, or is it dinner in a place like this?”

She sat down beside him. “I’m not a bride in real life. I am your best friend, at least as long as you are a OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 17

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dragon and I’m the princess the rest of the night, and it is supper. You let all those cameras come through the door and I’ll turn into a dragon and you can be the princess.”

“Never been a drag queen. What color dress do I get to wear if I’m a princess?” he teased.

“I think apricot taffeta and a corset, or at least a good tight- fittin’ bra.” She giggled. She’d only had two glasses of champagne, but they’d been on an empty stomach.

Ace kicked off his boots and leaned his head back on the sofa. “I was thinkin’ maybe I’d be a sexy princess and dress in black lace with one of those big floppy hats.”

His eyelashes fanned out on his cheekbones. Strange, she’d never noticed before how thick they were. His thigh pressed against hers and created another spasm of desire. It was a helluva time to decide that she was attracted to Ace Riley. All those months he’d teased her about a date and she’d held him off. Put him in a fancy motel and her in a wedding dress and suddenly she would like to have wild passionate sex with him? God, what was wrong with her? Hopefully it was a combination of nerves and hunger. Now that the whole thing was over and food would be coming soon, she would get over the craziness.

He opened his eyes, sat up, and looked at the menu.

“So we’ve moved past the drag queen conversation and onto the dinner?”

“Looks that way.” She moved even closer to study the menu with him.

There were dozens of women in north central Texas that Ace could order for. Gracie liked chicken fettuccine; OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 18

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Karly, seafood, preferably lobster; Macie, burgers and fries and banana splits afterwards. But he had no idea what Jasmine liked or hated.

“Steaks. Seafood. Wine list. Beer, imported and local.

Appetizers. Sushi,” he rattled off to cover the guilt trip.

“I don’t want sushi,” Jasmine said.

“Steaks?”

“Sounds good. Appetizer of those little pepper poppers,” she said.

Something hot in her mouth might take her mind off the hot cowboy beside her.

She hiked up her dress, removed the garter, and slipped it over his hand and up his arm to his bicep. “I won’t go past the barbed wire.”

“Good, because ain’t no woman going to get under the barbed wire and capture my heart.” He popped the garter and made the mistake of looking at her long legs, stretched from sofa to coffee table. Would those red toenails taste like strawberries? What would they taste like if he dipped them in warm chocolate syrup?

Stop
it, right now! Think about steak. Think about
fifty- yard passes. But not Jazzy. She’s only a bride to
save the ranch, not because she’s attracted to you, cowboy. If she was, she would have let it be known months
ago. This is like the old Western movies when the villain
tries to take the farm and the cowboy rides in with his
white hat and saves it for the damsel in distress. Only
with a twist. I was the cowboy in distress and Jazzy is
the cowgirl in the white hat who’s ridden in to save the
poor old cowboy. But rest assured, there damn sure
won’t be any ridin’ off into the sunset.

“Medium rare. Baked potato. Salad with ranch OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 19

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dressing and whatever dessert is chocolate and sinful.

And don’t forget the pepper poppers,” she said.

He picked up the phone, ordered, and turned back to find her green eyes locked with his. Something flashed between them like a forked bolt of lightning. She wet her lips like she did at the wedding chapel, and her eyes went soft and unfocused. He was leaning in for the kiss.

Hel , he could taste the kiss, and the arousal beginning to put pressure on his zipper was proof that he wanted even more than one kiss, but he drew back at the last minute.

Jasmine felt cheated and relieved at the same time.

Cheated because she really wanted his lips on hers; relieved because he blinked and quickly made an excuse to go to the bathroom. She went to the bedroom side of the wall splitting the room, opened her suitcase, and hurriedly changed from the white dress into boxer shorts and a gray tank top.

Get
the
damned
thing
off
and
the
vibes
will
go
away
, she thought.

She heard the shower running and thought back to the first time she met Ace Riley. He had been one of the first people she’d met at the Chicken Fried when she bought the place and found out that the café was his second home. He often stopped in right about closing time for a hamburger and ate it in the kitchen while he talked about his women problems, his ranch, or his family. When he came in just before closing last Thursday looking like he’d lost his last friend, she’d asked him what was wrong.

He’d sat down at the prep table and put his head in his hands.

“Okay, spit it out. Did your best friend die? Oh my OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 20

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God, he did, didn’t he? Please don’t tell me it’s Wil. I’ve got to call Pearl right now.”

He put out a hand and touched her arm to stop her.

“It’s not Wil or any of the O’Donnell brothers. It’s no one. I’m goin’ to lose my ranch, Jazzy.”

“Foreclosure?” she whispered.

“Oh, no, I’m not rich but I’ve got money and the ranch is paid for. My gramps left me everything he had.

Cows, bulls, land, house, barns. All of it. I moved my stock and equipment in, kept the best, and sold the rest.

He used an old lawyer that was half senile and half alco-holic and I signed all the papers the week after Gramps died. Without reading any of it,” he’d groaned.

She’d finished grilling a thick hamburger patty, toasted a bun, and put the burger together: mustard, meat patty, tomato, lettuce, pickle slices, and the top bun, added a double handful of chips on the side of the plate, and set it before him without even asking. She knew him so well after a year and a half that she even knew how many pickle slices he wanted on his burger.

“That wasn’t very smart, I take it?” she asked.

“No, the lawyer asked me if I understood all of it and I said I did. I’d worked for Gramps for years and knew it was mine when he passed on. We’d talked about it lots of times. I didn’t need to read all that legal jargon.”

“And what came back to bite you on the butt?” He’d bit into the burger without his usual happy

“mmmm” noises. “Old lawyer died. His nephew takes over and is closing his files. He reads the will and then calls me to make sure I’m married. When I told him

‘hell no,’ he said I was in big trouble. I have this cousin, not first cousin but second or third. His name is Cole OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 21

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and the small print in the will says that if I’m not married within two years of Gramps’ death, then Cole gets it all, lock, stock, and barrel. That means he gets what I’ve worked for because I sold off a lot of Gramps’s old equipment and the cattle culls, and in the past two years I’ve built the place up.”

Jasmine replayed the events while an old rerun of
Bones
played on television. How did she miss noticing how sexy his eyes were or how cute his butt was in those old faded Wranglers that day?

“How long you got?” she’d asked.

“A week and I don’t even have a girlfriend. And you can bet your sweet ass Cole is gloating. That bastard hates ranchin’ but he hates me even worse because I was Gramps’s favorite. He’s not even a Riley. He’s kin on Granny’s side so he’s a Nelson and Gramps knew exactly what he was doing. I’d fight a forest fire with nothing but the spit in my mouth to keep Cole from having my ranch.”

“So a week from today?” she’d asked.

“That’s it. I might as well start packing.”

“Where’s Cole from? I haven’t ever met him, have I?”

“Oh, no! That slimy bastard lives in Dallas and ac-cording to what he told the lawyer, the place and everything on it will be sold at auction before the end of summer. I can buy it or get out.”

“I’ll marry you,” she’d said without a second’s hesitation.

He’d almost choked. “What did you say?”

“I said that I’d marry you. You know the story of me and Eddie Jay. I don’t have any intentions of get ing married or even involved with anyone for at least a year.

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I’m on the wagon. How long do you have to stay married before you can get a divorce?”

“At least a year. Jazzy, a year is a long time,” he said.

“Depends on what you are doing. We won’t be doing anything different than we are right now. So it’ll go by just as fast if we’re married or if we aren’t. It’s a secret that only you and I will know about. Let’s go to Las Vegas and get married. We’ll bring home a marriage license and give it to the lawyer. Cole can crawl back under his rock and forget about taking your ranch and in a year we’ll get a very quiet divorce,” she’d said.

It had sounded like a beautiful golden plan at the time. No one other than the lawyer and greedy Cole would even know about the marriage. The lawyer would file the papers and forget about them. Cole could lick his wounds and forget about padding his bank account with the proceeds of the Double Deuce.

“Are you sure, Jazzy?” Ace had whispered.

“Hey, what are friends for?” she’d said with a big grin.

Now she wasn’t so damned sure that it had been a golden moment. More like a fool’s gold moment!

Q

Ace took a long, cool shower and had things under control when he wrapped a towel around his waist. He poked his head out of the bathroom and yelled, “Hey, Jazzy, would you pitch my duffel bag in here?” In a minute she stuffed it through the small slit and he shut the door. He dug around in the bag until he found his cotton pajama bottoms and a white tank top. He combed his curls back with his fingertips and brushed his teeth.

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He’d never had a friend like Jazzy before. They’d hit it off from the first day they’d met when he came into Chicken Fried Café after she’d bought it and ordered a burger. She was cute as a new baby kitten, tough as nails, and sweet as ice cream, and he’d flirted some those first few days. But they’d become friends and he didn’t want to ruin that. He could take any problem to Jazzy and she’d help him work through it. He’d eaten lots and lots of burgers in the middle of the afternoon in her kitchen while he talked about cows, bulls, hired help, and even women.

He’d never thought for a minute about him and Jazzy get ing hitched. He wouldn’t have asked her, not in a million years. But now they were and there was that crazy topsy- turvy moment when he kissed her at the chapel and another one when she sat down so close that their legs touched. Fire and ice shot through his body and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Jazzy was his friend, the only woman he’d ever trusted.

And she’d only married him because of that friendship.

So he’d had to shake that shit out of his mind about kissing her again to see if it felt as good the second time around.

He was just coming out of the bathroom when someone knocked on the door and yelled, “Room service.” She started to stand up but noticed that he was closer to the door. Damn, he was one hot cowboy with water droplets still clinging to his hair and that thin tank top stretched across an acre of chest. She wondered if that soft blond hair peeking out the top would feel like velvet on her fingertips.